REEDER, LAURIE

Mrs. Laurie D. Reeder

Laurie D. Reeder serves as the coordinator for the Marion County Center for the Arts and teaches three periods of Early College Effective Speaking. She enjoys building students’ confidence in their communication skills. Ms. Reeder graduated magna cum laude from Troy University where she majored in both Speech/Drama and English with a minor in voice.

While developing the acting and musical theater programs at Crestview High School in Okaloosa County, she pursued her M.A. in Communication Arts from the University of West Florida in Pensacola. In 1987 she and her husband moved to Marion County where she taught speech, drama, and English at Dunnellon High for 8 years. While teaching at DHS she was named the 1994 Marion County Teacher of the Year and is still active in the county’s Golden Apple Academy of Teachers and was responsible for co-directing the annual teacher of the year awards ceremony from 1996 until 2008.

She was invited to head the theater program at Belleview High School the second year of its opening and was instrumental in the construction of the school’s outdoor stage as well as the school’s Loft Playhouse. She has written numerous grants to assist in the development of the theater program at BHS and has won a variety of directing awards for both Thespian Mainstage Productions and Critic’s Choice Awards for One Acts.

Mrs. Reeder enjoys coordinating the many arts programs at WPHS. Philosophically she believes that every student should be exposed to the arts whether or not he or she wishes to pursue that art form professionally since it is only through the study of performing and/or visual arts that a student truly feeds his or her soul. Mrs. Reeder is passionate about all artistic forms and honored by the opportunity to work with the outstanding arts faculty and students at West Port High.

Mrs. Reeder is married to fellow WPHS instructor, Spencer Reeder. They are the parents of three daughters. The oldest daughter is pursuing her doctorate in audiology at LSU; the second daughter studies theater and communication science disorders at FSU. The youngest daughter is also at FSU pursuing a dual major in public relations and humanities.